talking about diets at work - AIBU?

[nevereverever83]

Long time lurker here... bit of a weird one to start posting with!!

On fb last night a girl i used to work with for a bit a few years ago posted a blog she wrote about her eating disorder basically saying that everyone talking about their diets at work (at lots of jobs, not just with me) made her bulemic, or made her bulemia/anorexia worse. I have noticed this does seem to happen a lot at work (talking about diets and weight loss i mean) especially where there are lots of women like in admin or receptionists and things like that and it makes me sad to think that she or other girls might be making themselves worse because they don't like hearing about others people's diets, but i'm sort of on the fence about it. I'm quite overweight (about a size 14-16) and it's not like i'm greedy or anything but i've just gradually put on a few pounds every year since getting married and never really lost them. I've been on WW and SW and a few other diets and since some of the other girls at work are also trying to loose weight we do talk about it sometimes, and i actually find it really supportive and helpful to know that we can compare notes and recipes and diets and things like that, and it helps me. So my x colleagues suggestion (which i know whasn't just aimed at me) that basically we're making her bulemic kind of annoyes me... but i also do feel sorry for her. So really i'm wondering if IABU or if she is BU or maybe neither or both? What are yout thoughts on diet chat and body size/weight talk at work?

When you say, OP, that banal diet talk is "something women can bond over", that makes me fucking livid.

I don't want people assuming that, because I have a uterus, I want to talk about calories and the size of my waist.
Talk to me about politics, news stories, the weather, music, cinema, tv. Want to keep it low-brow and uncontroversial? Fine. I'll hold my own on a waffle about Orange Is The New Black. Or the Brit Awards. Or the relative merits of various local pubs.

But to assume that I want to talk about Weightwatchers - and also sparing the men from that at the same time - is really quite offensive. There is more to me than my dress size. And I am more interested in what's in other people's heads than the labels on the clothes they wear.

I would hate to work in your office, OP. I would not fit in as one of the "office girls" who bangs on about calories and then eats cake when it's brought in for a birthday. Probably with a giggled "I shouldn't!" to add to the annoyance factor.

IME those who talk about diets never lose weight anyway. They're the ones loudly putting their Muller Lights in the office fridge and making a fuss about the fact that they're going to the gym after work. Then it's all over in a month.

Whereas (caveat - this is based on my own office environment!) those of us who don't "diet" and just eat well and exercise, tend to be slim - and don't bang on about what we eat.
We might talk about a run or a bike ride we've done, but it'll never be in an "oh, I burned 300 calories" way. It'll be to share a new route or comment on the scenery.

I hate it when people comment on my size and say to me "ooh you've lost the baby weight". Not least because I haven't, and they're not telling the truth - they're just saying something they think society expects them to - but because I'd rather they could come up with more relevant and interesting things to say to me.

Commenting on people's weight or the size of their lunch ("ooh, are you going to eat all that.") is just fucking rude.

^ What Running said.

IME those who talk about diets never lose weight anyway. They're the ones loudly putting their Muller Lights in the office fridge and making a fuss about the fact that they're going to the gym after work

Yes. This. And I'm sorry but people like this are inescapably dull. Likewise the people who suddenly decide they're gluten or dairy intolerant (for no medically backed reason) or do things like decide to completely give up sugar or whatever. Then they bang on and on and on about it. There is so much orthorexia around these days, backed up by dreadful "science" based evidence and I do think it contributes to people developing eating disorders.

I take delight in eating cake and cheese sandwiches in front of diet bores. Kudos to anyone who would like to lose weight and is doing so in a healthy, measured fashion, but don't bang on about it.

Runningupthathill82, you are right, many diet bores do drone on to women only and leave the men out of it. My diet bore office policed women's food but never that of male colleagues. And indeed this went on for a year without noticable weight loss. The only thing lost was the respect for their intellect. These were highly educated women, why look so shallow deliberately?

Yes, the most effective diets are always silent but deadly.

The worst thing about diet talk isn't just that it's boring (though it is); it's the message that what we eat, and what our bodies look like, are constantly subject to public scrutiny. You don't have to have an eating disorder to hate that.

Again, I'll stress to OP that I'm not saying women don't have the right to have these conversations. But since you asked, I'm telling you how they make me feel.

"The worst thing about diet talk isn't just that it's boring (though it is); it's the message that what we eat, and what our bodies look like, are constantly subject to public scrutiny. You don't have to have an eating disorder to hate that."

I went on a diet and lost a considerable amount of weight...people comment on it constantly, it's actually horrible and I probably seem like a diet bore to other people, but it's never me bringing it up.

yy to the comments about food intolerance. I once worked with a woman that was gluten intolerant and I only knew this as I occassionally got her lunch for her. Makes me very suspicious when people bang on about their food intolerances. Unless I need to know, eg, severe nut allergy, I do not need to know about your food intolerances.

I went on a diet and lost a considerable amount of weight...people comment on it constantly, it's actually horrible and I probably seem like a diet bore to other people, but it's never me bringing it up.

This is so true.
I now just say 'I am just eating more healthily' and avoid these people now.

Asking about someone's food intake is just as annoying as people talking about their own food intake.

A friend of mine lost half her body weight and is often asked whether she had a gastric band or did Slimming World etc. People are arsey when she tells them she did it by calorie counting and going to the gym, like she's got some amazing secret she won't share!

My workplace has a lot of this, men as well as women, and it drives me crazy. Particularly because most of the people involved are NOT overweight at all - it's all if I could just lose that 5 pounds, and why am I soooo fat ( well you're not actually) and oh look i've taken up running so I'll talk about that all the time and still complain about being 'fat' or go on some weird detox and talk about that incessantly, how hard it is but it'll be worth it etc etc. And look, now I'm not drinking till after the big race, and god it's hard but I'm sticking with it aren't I great...TEDIOUS. Really tedious. I just don't get involved. And I KNOW for a fact that the people at work who are overweight, and quietly trying to get healthy without announcing it all over the office, don't find this reassuring or supportive, they'd rather not have everyone poking through their lunch choices or bringing attention because they're in it for the long haul. Not the latest fad.
People really need to find something else to talk about...

I used to work somewhere and one of my colleagues used to talk about what she was having for lunch/dinner all of the time and I'm sure she did it to be passive aggressive about other people's eating habits. I felt like saying 'don't worry...what I eat goes into my stomach and onto my hips...not yours'.

YANBU

I have anorexia and work in a place where a lot of people diet. Yes, it can be tricky but it is me that is at fault, not them. They are engaging in normal, adult conversation that they want to have and have a right to have. In many cases it's helpful and healthy for them to have these conversations.

I am the one who is abnormal, unhealthy and unhelpful. Why should they change?

Your friend needs to get over herself.
An eating disorder is all consuming to the sufferer but that's no excuse for not realising that our thought processes do not reflect, and should not control, normal society.

I think that is a great, very reasonable blog entry, and she's right. Women (it is generally women) conversing and normalising their own disordered eating patterns every day at office lunch is going to have a negative effect on anyone in the group recovering from an ED. Common sense.

It is also common sense that it is exponentially worse for anyone recovering from an ED if their work colleagues expect everyone else to join in with the dieting and daily chit-chat about flapjacks being "naughty".

I cannot stand people who think my plate is public business and all it does to me is make me pissed off! It doesn't jeopardise my mental health, but it is still beyond rude.

"An eating disorder is all consuming to the sufferer but that's no excuse for not realising that our thought processes do not reflect, and should not control, normal society."

I don't think our society's attitude to diet, food consumption, weight, and discussion thereof (particularly wrt women) is remotely normal

It's also worth thinking about how much "normal society" contributes to eating disorders developing. They don't occur in a vacuum after all

'normal' is just what most people do/think isn't it? So if most people had eating disorders they would be normal. Most people (certainly most women) are interesting in and engage in diet and weight loss discussion/action - therefore it's normal.

I'd agree with you manic, in that disordered eating (including but not necessarily the same thing as a diagnosed eating disorders) is probably normal, yes, precisely because of the predominant diet culture/mentality in our society.

You can have different clinical definitions of normal e.g. statistical or functional. So stastically having a disordered relationship with food is normal. However functionally it borders on pathological so it's not normal by that definition.

I would say that 'normal' regarding food is when it is just a small part of life. A tasty meal is fun, food is pleasant and nutritious. But it should not rule your life, same as exercise, keeping clean or all the other 'body care' things we have to do.

Talking about diets, doing the infantile 'that's naughty, I shouldn't, oh go on then' and so on is extremely dull. If you don't want a piece of cake or whatever, just say 'no thank you'. If you do, say 'yes thank you'. Then both parties SHUT UP.